


And the hope of morning makes me worth the fight

by bookoftheazuresky



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Sandalphon's never been lacking in resolve, Time Travel, pre-000 Sandalphon, pre-rebellion Lucifer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 05:19:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookoftheazuresky/pseuds/bookoftheazuresky
Summary: “You feel so strange,” Lucifer said, and reality drove fangs as icy as any Otherworlder’s into his neck. Astrals. Lucilius. The rebellion and the war that followed. Sandalphon, Supreme Primarch, couldn’t be here.





	And the hope of morning makes me worth the fight

**Author's Note:**

> So, the idea of Sandalphon traveling to the past never left me alone. Whoops. Not actually sorry.
> 
> (Parts of this were written before 000, thus the mention of Lucio.) 
> 
> Title is from Hope of Morning by Icon for Hire, which is such a Sandalphon song.

Sandalphon turned his face away from the sunlight with an unvoiced grumble, chasing the sensations of a good dream. He felt heavy and exhausted, and the furtive, harsh scent of coffee from long ago, the laurel and morning glory of the courtyard in the lab where he had been created, was soothing. Even as it made his heart ache.

"Sandalphon," Lucifer said urgently, and the traitor angel almost sighed. So much for this being a good dream. Just hearing Lucifer's voice in memory made him want to cry. Whatever his stupid brain had come up with to torment him with now was guaranteed-

Healing magic poured into him in a wave, making Sandalphon yelp. He scrabbled upright and snapped at the person whose hand was on his chest, "I didn't need to be resurrected, Singularity! What-"

Lucifer, wide-eyed and relieved and _young_ , stared back at him. "Thank goodness," Lucifer said, shoulders relaxing. "You wouldn't wake."

"Lucifer?" Sandalphon couldn't believe what his eyes were telling him. It wasn't that Lucifer looked any different, objectively, than when he had stood before the traitor angel and told him that Pandemonium would not open. Lucifer was a primal, and millennia meant nothing to their kind. But that didn't mean he hadn't _changed_ in the millennia Sandalphon had known him. The rebellion, the war, Sandalphon's betrayal, Lucilius' cruelty- they had all cut bleeding wounds into Lucifer's spirit. The Lucifer that had died in his arms had tasted sorrow and regret and pain.

This one was the bright morning when the world was kind and new, not the guiding star of the evening, warden against the oncoming night. 

And the open pavilion surrounding them was impossible, the same delicate fretwork of pale metal and paler flowers that so often figured in his dreams. It was a place that had been destroyed even before Sandalphon's tenure in Pandemonium, lost to the rebellion.

Worry was beginning to crease pale brows again, and the hand on Sandalphon's chest came up to cup his cheek. "You look like," Lucifer started, then frowned faintly, searching for words. "Are you in pain?"

It belatedly occurred to Sandalphon that finding a grieving survivor of the war where an anxious adolescent was supposed to be might be as obvious to this Lucifer as his youth was to Sandalphon. Especially if Sandalphon kept letting his thoughts just cross his face like he was _Lyria_.

"I'm not injured." Sandalphon heard his own clipped tones and had to suppress a wince at the flicker of hurt that crossed Lucifer's face. Impulse had him wrap his fingers around the hand on his face. He forcibly softened his expression and voice and said, "Just give me a minute."

"Of course," Lucifer said easily, like he would never deny Sandalphon anything he wanted.

Sandalphon closed his eyes against it, took a deliberately even breath, and focused on the hand on his cheek. His extremities were still tingling with the rush of healing light, and it _felt_ like Lucifer's power, the unique quality of light that had vanished from the world with his death. But Sandalphon could feel the weight of six wings on his back, the sheer depth of the strength in his disposal. If Sandalphon was a primarch still, then Lucifer, this place, could not be real.

And yet...Sandalphon released Lucifer's hand and opened his eyes, meeting that sky-blue gaze. He wasn't convinced at all, despite what logic would tell him. He needed, Sandalphon decided, to get closer.

Lucifer started at the embrace, arms uncertainly open around Sandalphon. The traitor angel firmly squashed the spurt of disappointment and focused on Lucifer’s proximity, the unique feeling of his core, the archetype that he drew his power from. Every primal felt different to sense, even if they shared the same element. Luminiera was _honor-beyond-reason_ ; Noa was _sailing-under-the-North-Star_ ; Zooey was _balance-that-governs-chaos_. Even the primal that wore a form so much like Lucifer’s was _rosy-fingers-of-dawn,_ which bore a passing similarity but wasn’t correct.

The angel who had created him was _hope-and-star-of-the-morning_. No other primal, no other angel, could compare. It was beautiful and perfect and the Lucifer in his arms resonated with it, healthy and whole. It couldn’t, _couldn’t_ be an illusion, his own wishful thinking. Even his own memory couldn’t duplicate all the layers of resonance.

Sandalphon’s breath hitched. He squeezed Lucifer tighter, which finally prompted the taller angel to rest his hands tentatively on Sandalphon’s back.

“You feel so strange,” Lucifer said, and reality drove fangs as icy as any Otherworlder’s into his neck. Astrals. Lucilius. The rebellion and the war that followed. Sandalphon, Supreme Primarch, couldn’t be here.

 _No,_ Sandalphon thought despairingly, _not when I’ve only just realized what he really means to me…!_

But the part of him that had awakened with the revelation of his purpose, been harnessed in war, and grown to maturity in the hell of Pandemonium asked him: _do you think that this child will defy the Astrals, defy his creator, for you? Here, now, in this place, at this time?_

No. Lucifer would regret it, had regretted it, but Sandalphon knew his own past. The only question was, would Sandalphon force him to that choice again?

The traitor angel pulled back slightly, raising his hand to Lucifer’s face with a boldness that the self of this time would never have displayed. He wasn’t rebuffed, a reserved sort of happiness marking the taller angel’s features at his touch. He brushed white hair back from Lucifer’s temple, committing every tiny detail to memory and imprinting it on his core. So many words fought to leap from his tongue, words he’d never said and fiercely regretted, but couldn’t say now.

“I will see you again,” Sandalphon promised. Then, as confusion crept onto Lucifer’s face, he pushed _sleep-silence-blind_ into the unguarded innocent he embraced.

Lucifer’s collapse into his arms made him want to weep. He lowered the taller angel to the grassy ground, careful of his wings. Despite this, a shining-pale feather fell free of one of his upper wings- not a flight feather, as Sandalphon had feared for a split second. He scooped it up, trying not to think too hard as he tucked it into his clothes.

“I’ll be going out for a bit,” he said to the unconscious angel, voice raw with every emotion he was feeling at this moment. Of course, there was no response.

Then he straightened his shoulders and forced his presence to dim to the merest ghost of a flicker of light, too diffuse to follow even for his creator. Sandalphon didn’t let himself look at Lucifer on the carpet of soft green again- he couldn’t afford to have his resolve weakened.

Then, for the first time in all his long life, he took his leave of the Supreme Primarch, from their private garden.


End file.
